Happy Birthday, James Joyce!

James Joyce was born on February 2, 1882. To celebrate his birthday, we've chosen ten vocabulary words illustrated by Joyce in his unique prose style. Joyce has a reputation for being hard to understand, but these sentences demonstrate his ability to be clear and emotionally resonant.
10 words 514 learners

Learn words with Flashcards and other activities

Definition First
Print Flashcards

Other learning activities

Answer a few questions about each word. Use this to prep for your next quiz! Compete with other teams in real time to see who answers the most questions correctly! Test your spelling acumen. Read the definition, listen to the word and try spelling it!

Teaching tools

Create and assign quizzes to your students to test their vocabulary. Assign learning activities including Practice, Vocabulary Jams and Spelling Bees to your students, and monitor their progress in real-time.

Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. volitional
    with deliberate intention
    bosh! Stephen said rudely. A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.- Ulysses
  2. envoy
    someone on a mission to represent another's interests
    A wild angel had appeared to him, the angel of mortal youth and beauty, an envoy from the fair courts of life, to throw open before him in an instant of ecstasy the gates of all the ways of error and glory.- A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
  3. gnaw
    bite or chew on with the teeth
    And yet and yet! That strained look on her face! A gnawing sorrow is there all the time. Her very soul is in her eyes and she would give worlds to be in the privacy of her own familiar chamber where, giving way to tears, she could have a good cry and relieve her pentup feelings.- Ulysses
  4. reproachful
    expressing disapproval, blame, or disappointment
    Silently, in a dream she had come to him after her death, her wasted body within its loose brown grave-clothes giving off an odour of wax and rosewood, her breath, that had bent upon him, mute, reproachful, a faint odour of wetted ashes.- Ulysses
  5. spurned
    rebuffed (by a lover) without warning
    But I will tell you also what I do not fear. I do not fear to be alone or to be spurned for another or to leave whatever I have to leave. And I am not afraid to make a mistake, even a great mistake, a lifelong mistake and perhaps as long as eternity too.- A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
  6. obliquely
    to, toward or at one side
    He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight.- "The Dead"
  7. timid
    showing fear and lack of courage
    Her lips touched his brain as they touched his lips, as though they were a vehicle of some vague speech and between them he felt an unknown and timid pressure, darker than the swoon of sin, softer than sound or odor.- A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
  8. cleft
    a split or indentation in something
    Stephen bent forward and peered at the mirror held out to him, cleft by a crooked crack, hair on end. As he and others see me. Who chose this face for me?- Ulysses
  9. brackish
    slightly salty
    He was alone. He was unheeded, happy, and near to the wild heart of life. He was alone and young and wilful and wildhearted, alone amid a waste of wild air and brackish waters and the seaharvest of shells and tangle and veiled grey sunlight.- A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
    "unheeded" here means unnoticed, disregarded.
  10. ineluctable
    impossible to avoid or evade
    I throw this ended shadow from me, manshape ineluctable, call it back. Endless, would it be mine, form of my form? Who watches me here? Who ever anywhere will read these written words?-Ulysses
Created on Sat Feb 01 20:16:16 EST 2014 (updated Sun Feb 02 07:26:15 EST 2014)

Sign up now (it’s free!)

Whether you’re a teacher or a learner, Vocabulary.com can put you or your class on the path to systematic vocabulary improvement.